Daniel Wildstein, a passenger on the flight from Atlanta, said the plane careened off the runway for roughly 500 yards, but he praised the pilots for averting tragedy.

"They did a wonderful job," said Wildstein, 51, of Marietta, Georgia. "Anything short of going into the water is a wonderful job."

There were no life-threatening injuries among the 127 passengers and five crew members. Twenty-eight people were injured, with five taken to hospitals. Two of those passengers were in serious but stable condition Thursday night, according to the FDNY.

Delta Air Lines Flight 1086, an MD-88 aircraft, took off from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport shortly after 9 a.m. and landed on LaGuardia's Runway 13 at 11:10 a.m., officials said.

The runway had been plowed just minutes before the Delta landing, and two other pilots reported "good braking actions," said Patrick Foye, executive director of the Port Authority, the airport operator.

A Delta aircraft skidded on the runway at LaGuardia Airport and crashed into a fence as a blinding wintry mix coated the region Thursday morning, March 5, 2015. Photo Credit: Kristina Grossmann via Instagram

Runway 13 is 7,000 feet long and the plane began to veer to the left after about 4,500 feet, Foye said.

"The safety of our passengers and our crew is Delta's No. 1 priority," said Gail Grimmett, the airline's senior vice president for New York.

Delta said the MD-88 involved in the incident had a major maintenance overhaul in December 2010 and the plane had a routine service check on Tuesday. Delta took delivery of the aircraft in 1987.

Twenty minutes before the crash, the National Weather Service said it was foggy at the airport, with visibility about a quarter-mile. Snow was falling and the temperature was 26 degrees, with the wind blowing north at 9 mph.

An NTSB investigator, who was already in New York, took photographs at the scene and was to bring the plane's flight data and cockpit voice recorders to the agency's Washington, D.C., offices, NTSB spokesman Terry Williams said.